Fatal Exposure - By Gail Barrett Page 0,55
wrenched shoulder, and she bit down hard on a moan.
Parker swung his head around. “Does your arm still hurt?”
“It’s fine.” Actually it ached like hell, but that was the least of her concerns right now.
“Did you take the ibuprofen?”
She nodded. “I tripled the dose.”
“You need more ice.” He rose and strode to the bathroom, returning a second later with the ice pack he’d fashioned from a plastic bag. He sat on the mattress beside her, then arranged the pack on her wounded shoulder, holding it in place with his hand.
Deciding it was futile to argue, she tried to relax. But with his hard thigh resting against hers and his wide shoulders cradling her back, she found it difficult to concentrate. “So what’s next?” she asked, determined to focus on what mattered—staying alive.
He blew out a heavy breath. “Right now we have a bunch of loose ends that don’t seem to match up. We need to look at this thing logically and figure out how they connect.”
That sounded reasonable. “So where do we start?”
“With that photo. It’s the only concrete evidence we have right now. We know the guy with the killer in the warehouse was Dustin Alexander, a City of the Dead gang member. He died a couple years after you took that shot. We can’t see the executioner, so we don’t know anything about him. But about ten years ago the City of the Dead survivors merged with the Ridgewood gang.
“The Ridgewood gang killed Jamie,” he continued. “We don’t know who made the hit—one of their hard-core members or someone lower on the chain. But the decision to kill her probably came from the top.”
She processed that. “So you think the executioner survived and is a member of the Ridgewood gang?”
“It’s possible. And he’d be high enough in the organization by now to order a hit like that.”
That made sense—so far. “So when my picture appeared in the newspaper, the killer recognized me. He traced me to my agent to find out where I was. Somehow he found me and followed me to Jamie. Then he killed her, maybe to keep her from tipping us off.”
“Or he had someone do it for him. That could be why Markus Jenkins got released from jail.”
“It still doesn’t make sense. How exactly did he find me? And what about that necklace? What does it have to do with this?”
“Let’s not worry about the missing pieces yet. Let’s just start by laying out the facts.”
“All right.” But there were an awful lot of holes to plug. “So we need to find out who was behind that pillar. And since those photos disappeared, there’s a chance that he’s a cop.”
“It explains why they’re after us now.” Parker’s gaze connected with hers, the desolate look in his eyes making her chest contract.
She understood how he felt. A cop might have killed his brother. A fellow officer had deceived him, violating their sacred bond of trust. And she knew better than most exactly how devastating that was, how deep a betrayal like that would cut. “It’s not easy when someone you trust betrays you,” she whispered.
Parker didn’t answer, but the flash of anguish in his eyes gutted her heart. And suddenly, she needed to reach him, to show him he wasn’t alone. Words bubbled up, crowding her throat, reckless words she’d never spoken before—about her relationship with her stepfather, how the despicable man had abused her, how even her mother had failed to protect her, refusing to believe the sordid truth.
But the words stayed trapped in her throat, the startling intimacy she felt toward Parker shocking her into silence again. She couldn’t afford to reveal the truth. Not yet. No matter how much she wanted to trust him, Parker was still a cop, a man wedded to his badge. And for all she knew, he’d side with her stepfather, no matter how disillusioned he felt right now.
Needing space to regain her perspective, she grabbed the ice pack and rose, then took the seat he’d vacated at the desk. “So what’s next?”
“We need to find out who worked in Homicide when Tommy died. The only ones I remember are Hoffman and Vern Collins. Collins was the lead investigator in Tommy’s case.” He hesitated. “Do you have a cell phone I can use? The hotel’s too easy to trace.”
“A disposable one.”
“Even better.”
“Sure, go ahead.” She handed him her phone, then watched as he placed the call. “Who are you calling?”
“The admin secretary in Homicide. She might not know